Tag: Management

It’s another new year which means another season of resolutions. Many of us will make some promises to ourselves for what we will do differently this year. Yet many of us will never quite achieve what we intended, despite our good intentions. Here are some ideas for how to improve the likelihood that you reach your…

One of the questions I get often is how to bring a mindfulness initiative to an organization. This is not uncommon as organizations as diverse as Ford, Target, Apple, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, the U.S. Marines, and the New York Knicks offer mindfulness programs. So I was pleased when I attended the 5th annual Mindful…

I last wrote about the leadership skill of influence a few years ago. Since then, the interest in influence among my executive coaching clients is growing. It makes sense. No matter your position in an organization, you cannot always depend on your title to give you the authority to make decisions and move a vision forward. …

When we use the term “stance” in the context of leadership or business, we frequently mean “viewpoint” or “opinion.” I’m more interested in the actual posture of a leader. “Somatic” training and practices (“somatics”) use the body to create new awareness and change. This is not new in the field of coaching, and somatic practices are moving…

My blog post topics are often inspired by conversations I have with colleagues and topics of interest to my clients. This month, one of my clients, an introvert, asked me how he can improve his ability to network. As an introvert myself, and as someone for whom networking certainly doesn’t come naturally, this is the…

I recently started working with several clients who have the common leadership challenge of time management. Luckily, the July/August Harvard Business Review contains a perfectly relevant article, How CEOs Manage Time. While my clients are not all CEOs, the article still has recommendations and takeaways that are applicable to any leader. Set priorities. The authors…

The topic of mindfulness is frequently approached as a skill to be developed, which in turn supports capabilities such as improved focus and productivity. But there is another side of mindfulness which is just as important, and I refer to it as “heartfulness.” When we take the time to be mindful, we also increase our…

Last month I took a coach training class as part of my ongoing professional development. The class was based on concepts from martial arts, brought into a leadership context. In one exercise, we were supposed to push gently on a partner from different standing positions to evaluate our “leadership strength” in each position. At the…

When I first started researching mindfulness in 2011, the common attitude at the time was what I describe as “drive-by mindfulness.” Meaning, to develop the skill of mindfulness, you don’t have to cultivate a practice or dedicate time to it on your schedule. Instead, you can simply pause and take a few mindful breaths a…

A popular topic around leadership is employee engagement: how leaders can help create an environment where employees are enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace. I had never made a connection between employee engagement and performance evaluations until I read a recent Gallup study called Re-Engineering Performance Management. The Gallup study is part of a broader trend in re-thinking methods and…